GUN MAYHEM (Student Innovation Project)
Project Description
Gun Mayhem is a 3rd Person Shooter game built in Unreal Engine 4. It is a Co-op driven game with an emphasis on teamwork. Players share a resource system known as Equilibrium. This system is made up of two parts: Matter and Energy. Each player has access to only one side of this resource and their game-play will directly affect how much of that resource is used.
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This resource is the main mechanic of the game and is core to the gameplay loop. Players will be using this resource throughout the game. Spending it will affect how strong they are. Using it wisely and as a team can buff both players and even grant access to special abilities like Stim Boost.
Innovation Claim: Equilibrium
Equilibrium is a shared resource system with two different sides to it: Matter and Energy. As stated before, each player will only have access to one side of this resource. That means, they can only spend their given resource. For example, actions such as reloading or using abilities will spend your respective resource.
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Upon spending this resource, it will automatically be converted to the opposing resource (note: Transfer is not immediate, it will take a little bit of time depending on how much was spent). Having more than 50% of their respective resource will empower the player, thus improving their speed and damage. Likewise, having less than 50% will have the exact opposite effect.
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The purpose behind this mechanic is to create a seesaw effect between the two players. Ideally, players will be constantly spending their resource and passing that empowered state back and force like a seesaw. Doing this successfully during a small time window (about 30 to 60 seconds), player will be rewarded with a stack of Universal Balance. A buff that benefits both players. The more stacks the more the benefit. Reaching 10 stacks or more will grant access to powerful abilities such as a Stim Boost. Stim Boost will double your fire rate and movement speed for a short duration, but costs Universal Balance stacks to use. There are plenty of ways this mechanic can be utilized. For further examples on usage scenarios, please watch the Gun Mayhem Project video at the top of the page.
Gun Mayhem History
This project was built from the ground up using Unreal Engine 4 and free marketplace assets. I had to program everything on my own. This includes the player controller, animation blueprint, guns/gun mechanics, and even the AI.
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Gun Mayhem started as a 'for fun' project. I was testing the limits of Unreal Engine 4 and learning a ton about it. So, I kept adding to the project, and It started morphing into a playable prototype. Now, I want to take this project a step further with my SIP. I combined my old SIP shared resource mechanic with this project and Gun Mayhem was born.
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Originally, this game was designed to be an asymmetrical co-op puzzle game with the theme of "water and fire" being the two characters and "heat" as the shared resource. Instead of building this game from scratch, I decided to take the shared resource mechanic and implement it into the prototype I had already built.